About a year ago, I got married. I couldn’t invite everyone from my friend group, so I decided to only invite people I actually spend time with one-on-one outside of group stuff over the past year or two.

There are two people in the group—one of them being the one this is really about—who I honestly wouldn’t even know if they stopped hanging out with our shared friends. We’ve never done anything just the two of us. We only ever see each other at parties every few months.

Thing is, those two are also the ones who organize everything. They’ve kind of created their own mini friend group inside the bigger group—like 6 or 7 people out of 15 who get invited to the real stuff: birthdays, city trips, holidays, etc. And five of those people are actually close friends of mine.

When I invited 9 of the 15 to my wedding, I told people I just couldn’t include everyone. Most people were cool with it, even her best friend didn’t mind. But now, she’s throwing a party for her 30th birthday and invited everyone—except me.

She’s never invited me to her birthday before, which is part of why I didn’t invite her to the wedding in the first place. I figured if we’re not close enough for a birthday dinner, a wedding isn’t happening either.

But this time it’s different. She invited literally everyone else in the group. My best friend wasn’t invited either, but that makes sense—he doesn’t really know her. With me, though, I’m pretty sure it’s payback for not inviting her to my wedding.

And yeah… I don’t know. I usually don’t care about her events because I’m not close with her. But this time feels different. Not because I wanted to go to her party—but because everyone else is going. I know I’ll be left out when they’re all talking about it later. I’ll miss out on those shared moments, even if it’s with people I do care about.

I get it. I didn’t invite her, she’s not inviting me. Fair enough. But I can’t help feeling weird about it. Like, yeah, maybe I started this when I didn’t include her—but at the same time, she’s the one who’s always made the group feel split in two. She’s been excluding people for years.

Anyway, here we are. Not invited. And for once, it actually kind of stings. Wish it didn’t. But this one hits different.

I probably won’t be able to fix this cause even on group gatherings we rarely have a 1:1 conversation. Like never had… she is the person that is always there and in the middle of all but if we talk it’s in a group setting. I can’t remember if I ever talked alone with her.

I personally would have invited her to something like a birthday. But I don’t celebrate my birthdays. I never did and I don’t care about my birthday. Three years ago I planned a trip to a theme park and I invited everyone (and her) to join and organised everything. A few weeks later she organised something else but only with the 5 other friends. So that was the last time I organised something.

It’s weird because this person also makes me feel very insecure. It’s not that I don’t like her but when she is around I am totally different. I am more quiet, scared to say things I would normally say,… it’s a very loud person and I just don’t like that. But that is all I have to her. Maybe she is different alone but I sometimes do wonder why everyone likes her. She likes to be in the middle of everything, kind of like attention seeker. But not really either… To me she comes off as passive toxic. If I just observe her at parties I am always happy I only see her at these parties and not on vacations, trips etc… but maybe it’s also cause I am mad about the splitting of our group and that she didn’t invite me 3 years ago after I organised a trip first.

This feeling actually made me more silent, I avoid going to these parties more and more. I go more to the gym, do things with 2 other friends but I feel like I am isolating myself more and more and trying to find new people which is very hard. I go to the gym like 6 times a week and talk with someone there but that is it. This whole thing makes me feel like I am not really wanted anymore in that group and maybe she is saying things to my other friends about me. Or I am just thinking this going full psycho and nothing is going on. In the end maybe she just forgot to invite me and doesn’t even care - but that I don’t believe. This time she excluded me on purpose and invited the others who she normally never invites intentionally.